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US and Italy – current and former COVID-19 epicenters – are worlds apart in pandemic approach - USA TODAY
Oct 17, 2020 2 mins, 8 secs
4.4 million Italians are able to return to work and some limits on movement have been removed in the first European country to impose a lockdown during the pandemic.

ROME – Italy and the United States are a study in contrasts when it comes to the way they confronted the pandemic.

Italy, a country of 60 million, was the first in the world to have 200,000 official coronavirus cases (on April 28) and the first to record 30,000 deaths (May 7).

Life under coronavirus lockdown in Italy: My quarantine, a worried wait for a test result – and relief.

Now, as is the case in most countries in Europe, COVID-19 infections in Italy are rising again and the country topped 10,000 new infections on Friday, breaking its all-time daily high for positive tests.

Coronavirus infections per million in Italy and the United States since March 2020 (Photo: Max Roser, Hannah Ritchie, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Joe Hasell (2020) - "Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus').

has had roughly 8 million cases and more than 217,000 deaths.

Still, earlier this month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel – Germany is the major European country with the most success in limiting the spread of the virus – warned her compatriots against taking vacations in high-risk parts of Europe.

But she said there was no problem for them to travel to Italy, where she said the government "has acted with great prudence.".

“Italians have always looked up to the United States but what is happening now makes us watch in disbelief,” said Flavio Chiapponi, a political scientist with the University of Pavia in northern Italy.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has vowed the country would not face another national lockdown.

Many in Italy believe inadequate testing in the early weeks resulted in a massive under-counting of cases, meaning rates in March and April would dwarf current rates

That research showed that around 85% of Italians said they were “very” or “quite” willing to don a mask if advised to do so, the highest rate among the European countries surveyed. 

“I feel like the country’s leadership has sent a clear, united, consistent message about the coronavirus, unlike the situation back home,” said Molly Gage, a mother of two who originally hails from Pittsburgh but based in Rome for 13 years

“In Italy, the pandemic is treated like a public health issue, which is what it is

They are known as "the invisibles," Italy's undocumented African migrants who, even before the coronavirus outbreak plunged Italy into crisis, barely scraped by as day laborers, prostitutes, free-lance hairdressers and seasonal farm hands

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